Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a serious threat to modern medical care. Bacteria have a remarkable ability to develop resistance to new antibiotics rendering them quickly ineffective. For example, the widespread use of penicillins and cephalosporins has resulted in the emergence of β-lactamases, a family of bacterial enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of the β-lactam ring common to numerous antibiotics. Hydrolysis of the β-lactam ring leads to the inactivation of the antibiotic and allows the bacteria to resist the antibiotic. β-lactamase inhibitors deactivate or slow down the β-lactamase enzyme activity thus reducing the degradation of β-lactam antibiotics by the bacteria. The continuing evolution of antibacterial resistance could result in bacterial strains against which currently available antibacterial agents will be ineffective.
Therefore, there is a continuing need to discover and develop compounds that inhibit β-lactamases and that may be useful to treat bacterial infections.